I never said Columbia Heights was downtown. I lived there too, in 2000 and 2001 right on Park Rd. NW at 14th St. It is most certainly urban and inner city, and a good example of where national chains opened stores using their more vertical, urban floor plans like those in Manhattan. That Target is the first and only one in the District of Columbia; no more do DC residents have to go to Route 1 and pay sales tax to VA. There is no TOD at the RI Ave. station–that’s one of the notorious failures good groups like the Coalition for Smarter Growth are working on now. Rockville works pretty well, but that’s much further from downtown than Northgate is; roughly 15 miles, the 2nd last stop on the Red Line. Northgate is about 7-8 miles from downtown; more like Bethesda.

BTW I lived right on the street that has that mall in NW DC almost 30 years ago. That is not ‘downtown’ any way you look at it. I’ve also seen the ups and downs of TOD at Rhode Island and Rockville, and I compare Northgate to Rockville. Could be interesting how it ends up.

I’m wary of big boxes in urban areas, but not so reflexively opposed to them as many Seattleites. Why? Because I’ve spent time in DC and New York where I’ve seen that they don’t have to be awful, monstrous, impermeable, inhospitable structures that house evil chains like Wal-Mart. Look at the new Columbia Heights station area in DC. Many national chains (Bed, Bath and Beyond; Best Buy; Target) realized a few years ago that they’d saturated the suburban and rural areas with stores but neglected big cities. And they realized that hulking one-story boxes surrounded by parking don’t work in urban areas. So they’ve developed stores with smaller horizontal footprints that make use of height instead. They work fairly well as TOD components. Furthermore, I’ll give the example of myself living on Capitol Hill where my only choices for buying a lot of things are grossly overpriced stores like QFC. If I want reasonable prices or items I can’t get on the Hill, I have to go down to Costco (CAR!) or up to Northgate to Target, if not outside the City altogether. This reduces urbanites’ quality of life and sends tax revenue Seattle could be collecting to the suburbs. I want a Target downtown or on Capitol Hill!

Finally, while others have covered many great aspects of this project, I also work in the area now; 4th Ave. NE & NE 100th St. This project, like Olive 8 and others in town, aims to be and markets itself as pedestrian-friendly, yet it’s closed a huge stretch of sidewalk to pedestrians for well over a year during construction. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but it can be reduced and mitigated much better. 5th Ave. NE is an important arterial–it’s how you get to and from the library and community center, and Northgate North. Yet there’s no provision for pedestrians to walk on the west side of the street. If that kind of practice is allowed and continued, one street may reopen upon completion of one project, but other sidewalks will close when nearby projects are built. This closes large and important part of the pedestrian transportation network, making the area not so ped-friendly, and it’s unsustainable. In 2008 City Council commissioned a report from the City Auditor’s office on construction sidewalk closures, and the result is excellent. A stakeholder committee is now going over the report to make recommendations to the Council, and we’re going to need to be squeaky wheels telling Council to adopt the recommendations for a new regime that will reduce the number, size, and duration of sidewalk closures and provide alternative continuous pedestrian paths around construction sites.

I was in San Diego last week, even they seem to be light years ahead of Seattle with TOD and thier trolly system. Funking San Dog is beating Seattle…